The Kennesaw City Council voted 5-0 Monday to change wording throughout their city code from “church” to “religious assembly” in order “to promote free and public assembly.”
These changes are designed to bring the city into compliance with recommended changes from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The definition of “church” as “a place where persons regularly assemble for religious worship” is removed now as well as “other places of worship” such as “monasteries, convents, novitiates, parish houses, parsonages, rectories and manses.”
Instead the definition of “religious assembly” is “a site or facility maintained by a bona fide religious group for the primary purposes of religious worship, study, prayer or other religious practices of such religious group. Religious assemblies include but are not limited to churches, mosques, synagogues and temples.”
Within the Historic Preservation Village Overlay District, religious assemblies are allowed in the area bounded on the north by Cherokee Street and Big Shanty Road, on the east by Sardis Street, on the south by Old Highway 41 and on the west by CSX Railroad.
They also are allowed now in the Central Business District.
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